Article/Document:

UFOs in Russia: Witness Statements and X-Files

Nikolay Subbotin, Pravda

Summary: it is generally admitted that the UFO question has been studied for a long time by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the State Hydrometeorology Committee, and the Defense Ministry

Unfortunately, if classified documents about UFOs actually exist, it is highly problematic to obtain them in Russia. In fact, researchers today have of just few official materials. At that, it is generally admitted that the UFO question has been studied for a long time by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the State Hydrometeorology Committee, and the Defense Ministry (Yuly Platov and Boris Sokolov refer to this in the report “History of Soviet Studies of UFOs”; Retired Colonel Boris Sokolov worked as a coordinator for anomaly studies at the Soviet Defense Ministry and Academy of Sciences during 1978 – 1989). Within the past two years, lots of allegedly classified documents have appeared on the Internet, which talk about the evacuation of some strange objects held under the KGB aegis. However, it is unlikely that these documents are reliable.

I can say for sure that a 127-page record of anomalous events observed on the territory of the former Soviet Union and in the Russian Federation, which KGB Deputy chairman Sham had given to cosmonaut Popovich, is a document that really exists. However, these documents only refer to events that have occurred in the past; they don’t provide any information for us to understand how seriously the KGB treated the UFO problem. Thus, the situation is paradoxical: everybody knows that the situation is studied on the governmental level, but there are no open documents revealing the results of these investigations (certainly, except for the Platov-Sokolov work). It is strange, because, if research is held, reports on the results achieved must exist as well. Yuly Platov says that the government program for UFO studies was launched in 1978 and continued till 1996 (there are some facts confirming that this program still exists, but on a smaller scale). This means that for eighteen years, money has been appropriated from the state budget to pay wages, travel expenses, and so on to officials employed in the program. It is likely that the research program was worth the spending. It is unbelievable that the results of the program could be expressed just in several sentences, the way it had been done by the authors of the article: “Results of the work done revealed that the majority of phenomena that people ascribe to anomalous can be easily explained. They are basically connected with the developing technical activity of humanity or with uncommon natural phenomena. One of the most considerable results of the investigation is not the identification of the majority of phenomena observed by the people or an explanation of technical details of how they occur, though the results achieved in this direction are certainly great. The most astonishing thing is that, although people often describe contacts with UFOs, the collections compiled by UFO scientists are rather impressive, but the large-scale project that involved all necessary facilities reported nothing at all about UFO landings, contacts with UFO pilots, or about people kidnapped by UFO. This means that either the Soviet Union's territory was banned for UFO visits for 13 years at least or the failure of the very hypothesis of the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. Any serious investigator working on the UFO problem should at least take this result into consideration.”

I talked to a Strategic Missile Troops colonel who investigated the landing of a UFO near a children's camp and the observation of two humanoids conducting some tests near the camp. There is a document confirming the UFO's landing in a village in the Russia’s Sverdlovsk region, contacts established between the extraterrestrials and the villagers, and the results of investigations held at the landing site. There are some more facts that are quite reliable. That is why I disagree with the official statement made by Platov and Sokolov, saying that no official reports about UFO landings and no information about contacts with UFO pilots was done.

As for the USA, the situation with documents about UFOs is much better there. According to US legislation, any American citizen can obtain copies of unclassified documents issued by any governmental department. The Freedom of Information Act came into effect in 1966. According to official FBI statistics, over the past twenty years, the Bureau officials processed about 300,000 inquiries from US citizens and issued about 6 million pages of unclassified documents. In 1975, when first personal computers appeared, the documents were transferred to electronic media. The majority of unclassified documents are currently available on the Internet. These are unclassified documents belonging to the FBI, the Agency for National Security, the CIA, the Air Force, and others that provide evidence of UFO landings, anomalous events, responses of governmental services to reports of this kind, and official reports of federal agents and other unique information. On the one hand, it is nice that American researchers have wide access to information of this kind. However, on the other hand, before declassification, all documents are exposed to thorough censorship, and very often, very valuable information is completely deleted from them.

A couple of days ago, I downloaded from the Internet documents on official UFO research held by the CIA and the Agency for National Security. Being extremely enthusiastic about it, I opened the first files but became extremely disappointed when I saw just official headlines and stamps on perfectly white sheets of paper. All the information concerning UFO researche was completely deleted by censors. It is true that these documents help to arrange events chronologically, to trace their origin, and to make some definite conclusions. However, in the end, the documents provide nothing more than information that already known to everyone.

Therefore, the situation concerning documents on governmental research connected with UFOs is similar in Russia and the USA, with the only differenc being that Russian researchers don’t have any documents at their disposal, and Americans, although piled with heaps of documents on UFO research, can’t derive any benifit from the documents. This is like the X-Files, when Mulder seems to be very close to a clue, but a strange man in a suit and a cigarette between his teeth comes and takes all the evidence away. The only thing left for us is to sit and shed tears over the phrase: THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

What do journalists and military men say?

Here are the words of Eugeny Lutsenko taken from the archives of the RUFOS, the Russian UFO station. “When I was in the army during 1979-1981 (I served in the air defense forces), a secret order and methodical recommendations were in force then, which said what we were to do if a UFO appeared. We used the instructions in our training with soldiers. Our military unit detached a group for participation in UFO studies. There were places haunted by UFOs almost every other night. I wasn’t in the group, as I was a regular soldier, not a communist (which had been really important during that Soviet period) and no first-class specialist. When the guys belonging to the group returned, they said nothing at all, and we never asked, as we understood that they had been ordered not to speak of the details of the operation. However, when we were leaving the army, they told what they had seen during the operation. They said they had seen UFOs several times, including man-made objects looking very much like our technology. It was unbelievable at that time, and now we can speak openly about it.”

“The Soviet leadership also evinced great interest in UFOs. The US press published information with reference to State Intelligence Department double agent Yury Popov saying that the Central Intelligence Department in the Soviet Army HQ issued a secret directive in 1952. The third paragraph of the directive was the task of finding out whether the UFOs breaking the Soviet air boundaries were secret foreign flying machines, actions specially organized by imperialistic secret services, or piloted or not piloted extraterrestrial objects researching the Earth or some unknown natural events. However, the Soviet government was strenuously trying to veil its interest in UFOs and even issued reports about ideological struggles against rumors of flying objects and humanoids.” (Vitaly Shelepov, 68 UFO Above the White House, or How Air Forces and the Navy Quarreled About UFO)

“It is not accidental that the secret laboratory for UFO studies was set up in the 1960s and was connected with the target ground in Kapustin Yar. At the end of June, 1971, servicemen observed a cigar-shaped black object that flew 800 meters above the clouds near Kapustin Yar. The apparatus, which was 25 meters long and about 3 meters in diameter, had neither stabilizers, wings, nor engines. Its speed was 150 km/h, and it moved absolutely silently. The laboratory also studied antigravitation questions; it is quite natural that nothing was reported about its achievements, if any were actually made. In 1978, the Soviet Defense Ministry adopted a program called “The Moscow Region Net." A military unit situated in the city of Mytishchi in the Moscow region was picked as the center for data collection. Special space troops were created in the Soviet Union to repulse attacks from the space." (Alexander Dremin, Ufology secrets in the Soviet Army; published in the 47th issue of Vozdushny Transport (Air Transport) of November 22, 2000).

“A special, extremely secret laboratory for collecting data and reports about anomalous space events was created in the city of Mytishchi in the Moscow region. The laboratory was set up on the premises of a military institute. All kinds of the Soviet troops sent information about UFOs to the laboratory. We had all kinds of specialist to be employed in cases when the army, military technology, and armament was influence upon.” (An extract from report delivered by Defense Ministry Expert Alexander Plaksin, on Russia’s REN-TV television on October 8, 2000.)